Trump and the Prospect

Today on TAP: You’ll get the Donald aplenty elsewhere.

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As I write, on Tuesday afternoon, all three legacy networks, all three cable news networks, and for all I know The Food Channel and ESPN-W (Whatever) are covering the Trump arraignment. More precisely, covering by helicopter his caravan from Trump Tower to the courthouse, and covering the closed door of the courtroom.

I’m reminded, of course, of the 24/7 coverage of the O.J. Simpson freeway “chase” (at 25 mph) and ensuing trial. At the time, I was serving not (as customarily) as the L.A. Weekly’s number two editor, but as the number one, since we were between number ones. The media, the smog, the air, were saturated, drenched, drowned with O.J. all the time. Pervasive as it all was in the national media, it was even more so in Los Angeles. I could see no way that the Weekly could add to the daily, hourly, minute-ly coverage of all things O.J. that continually washed over us.

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So we covered only the politics and sociology of it all: the nature of the LAPD, since it was raised as an issue at trial (we had been raising it as an issue since the paper was founded in the late 1970s), the disparate effects the trial was having across the city’s far-flung and wildly diverse communities, and whatever really rattled the city’s underlying tectonic plates.

Our editors and staff have concluded that this is pretty much how the Prospect is going to deal with the Trump legal proceedings that are beginning today. Unless you’re going off both the literal and informational grid, you’ll be able to hear plenty about every nuance, twist, and turn of the Donald’s adventures in legal-land. You won’t hear that from us. About the larger politics and sociology, about how constituencies and parties are reacting, about its effect on politics, economics, education, media, general morale—we’ll be there. We’re particularly interested in what the case means for a justice system that has for a long time in this country featured two tiers, one for the rich and one for the rest.

But we’re not going to add to the day-to-day cacophony.

There’s a lot else happening. Millions are about to lose their Medicaid coverage. Public investments are being rolled out, and others are being ruled out. The Fed may yet plunge the nation into recession. Workers are restive. The planet’s imperiled. Important elections are taking place today. That’s our beat. And when the trial(s) of Trump affect such matters, as they surely will, that will be our beat, too.

But only when they do.

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

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